


always fall (a little short in front of you)

by liadan14



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Sex, Booker is still bitter about the lack of American aid to the French Revolution that's all, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Consent, Flirting, Joe in Women's Underwear, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Nicky in Women's Underwear, Oral Sex, Post Reunion with Quynh, Post-Movie, Rimming, Set in Vegas, Submissive Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Women's Underwear, mentioned past trauma, mild america bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28190034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: Booker stumbles into the kitchen at five forty-five. There are many things he likes about the modern era. The internet. Vaccines. Indoor plumbing. Jetlag still gets him every fucking time, though.He’s almost convinced he’s still dreaming when Nicky walks in. More specifically, he’s almost entirely certain he’s having an incredibly embarrassing fully-fledged wet dream when Nicky walks in, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned shirt that almost certainly belongs to Joe and a pair of lacy, sea-green women’s panties.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 43
Kudos: 305
Collections: The Old Guard Gift Exchange 2020





	always fall (a little short in front of you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badwolfbadwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfbadwolf/gifts).



> Warnings:
> 
> -Booker mentions being tortured by Quynh. He doesn't go into detail and isn't too messed up about it, which says more about him than about the torture honestly.  
> -Nicky pretends to be into emetophilia for one line to make a point.  
> -Booker remembers having once been given a drug by a sexual partner without his knowledge or consent. Also only mentioned once and briefly.

Booker stumbles into the kitchen at five forty-five.

There are many things he likes about the modern era. The internet. Vaccines. Indoor plumbing.

Jetlag still gets him every fucking time, though, and there’s a not-so-secret part of him that thinks mankind was just not meant to hurtle around the globe in a levitating tin can.

Nile would call him a grumpy old man.

Unfortunately, Nile is on the other side of the globe, babysitting Andy and Quynh’s reunion, a job Booker emphatically does not envy. After the trail of destruction Quynh’s miraculous return had left over several major cities in Western Europe, starting in what used to be Booker’s Paris apartment, none of them had trusted her alone with Andy, now she was mortal.

At the same time, Copley had been breathing down their necks, insisting they split up and lay low. Joe and Nicky offered to split up so one of them could stay with Quynh, but Andy and Nile had refused that so insistently that Booker had instinctively gone for the flask he no longer carried.

He wasn’t blind.

He could see the bags under Nicky’s eyes, more stark than usual. He could see the tension in Joe’s frame, how his eyes always strayed towards Nicky, how Nicky always stood between Joe and the door.

 _You did this to them_ , he reminded himself.

He hadn’t offered himself as a guard for Andy, because no one would trust him to do it anyway.

That left only Nile, who was young enough and energetic enough to keep Quynh in check and not want to murder her and Andy for the crime of being in love.

Booker had presumed he would return to his exile, the cuff marks on his wrists barely healed after his extended period alternately allowing Quynh to torture her own anguish into his skin and holding her through the worst of her nightmares.

Then Copley had emailed three tickets to Las Vegas and that had been that.

Kiev to Las Vegas was a hell of a trip, and Booker is regretting most of his life choices now, which is normal, for him, but particularly upsetting at five forty-five. He hasn’t been able to sleep through the night since they arrived – jet lag, idleness, light pollution and his own crushing guilt mixing to an awful cocktail of lying awake on the lumpy sofa bed, regretting his choices.

So here he is, in the kitchen of a nondescript two-bedroom apartment in Vegas at quarter to six in the morning, making himself coffee and wondering how long he will keep living in this limbo.

He’s almost convinced he’s still dreaming when Nicky walks in.

More specifically, he’s almost entirely certain he’s having an incredibly embarrassing fully-fledged wet dream when Nicky walks in, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned shirt that almost certainly belongs to Joe and a pair of lacy, sea-green women’s panties.

“Morning,” Nicky hums, and then opens the fridge to rummage inside.

Booker can do nothing but stare at his ass.

The scalloped edge of the underwear cuts across the cheeks of his ass, framing it as he leans forward slightly to reach the very back of the top shelf.

Booker is _salivating_.

They’re not even that nice, as women’s lingerie goes. There’s a loose thread at the top edge, where Nicky’s ass becomes hip, and the fabric is stretched out from overuse (of course it is, Nicky’s ass is _fantastic_ , lace can’t contain it). Somehow, that just makes it worse, the knowledge that Nicky has worn these so often they show signs of overuse. This is something he does regularly. Maybe Joe paints him in them. Maybe Joe licks at the front, where Nicky’s cock is barely contained by the fabric.

Abruptly, Nicky closes the fridge.

He’s holding the tub of chocolate frosting in his hand.

He smirks at Booker and heads back to the bedroom.

“Goddammit,” Booker says to the empty room. That was his chocolate frosting, that he bought at the godawful American supermarket where the cashiers weren’t allowed to sit down and they sold chips with lime flavor as if that was something to be proud of. Frosting shouldn’t even come pre-made in cans, but Booker was willing to overlook that for the prospect of eating a whole tub in one sitting.

Now, he can’t even buy a replacement, because he will forever associate the damn thing with the mental image of Nicky straddling Joe, panties stretching tight across his dick, bending down to lick chocolate off the taut lines of Joe’s abdomen.

About a hundred years into knowing them, Booker stopped jerking off to the thought of Joe and Nicky, because it had gone from erotic to painful.

Sharing an apartment this small with only them for the past three days has made certain parts of him want desperately to reconsider that stance.

It’s not even that they’ve been particularly offensive about how stupidly, violently, sexually in love they are until this precise moment; they never have been. It had made not thinking of them when he pleasured himself easier, that he knew so little of what passed between them in private, beyond the sweet way they spoke of each other.

No, it’s that two rooms is not enough distance to put between them, it’s that Americans build their houses out of papier mâché and crossed fingers and Booker has sensitive ears and he can hear them rustling in their bedsheets, he can hear them laughing warmly with each other, he can hear them _loving each other in his presence_ even though he doesn’t deserve to even breathe the same air as them, let alone witness their love. If he were them, he would guard himself zealously from ever showing Booker even an ounce of their affection.

Leaning against the kitchen counter, Booker feels as if he has been left stunned by the intimacy Nicky just put on display.

Perhaps this is punishment, he considers. They’ve already exiled him – abandoned him, his more selfish impulses say – and he came right back, so they will rub in his face all that he can’t have. That’s certainly what it feels like. It doesn’t sound like something Joe or Nicky would do, though.

With nothing to do but overthink, Booker takes his keys and goes out.

Thank God Americans keep everything open all the damn time.

Their safehouse is nowhere near the strip, thank fuck, but they are near Fremont street – sorry, the _Fremont Street Experience_ – and because every hotel that wants to compete has to have a casino in the ground floor to drive down the room prices, Booker parks himself in the Four Queens and feeds twenty dollars into a slot machine, quarter by quarter.

He wins just enough to keep himself going until nine in the morning and then runs out for good.

The cheap animation of a scantily clad mythical figure of some sort dances across the screen, announcing to Booker that he has lost yet again, as if he couldn’t tell.

Booker wonders if Nicky ever wears the kind of thing she’s wearing, silk so sheer it’s nearly see-through.

Then again, it would probably look better on Joe.

Fuck, that’s a thought – Joe in silk, the sharp cut of his muscles contrasting it obscenely, Joe’s cock leaving damp trails where it strains against—

Booker really can’t be blamed that on his way to the grocery store, he accidentally walks into an American Eagle Outlet. (He can maybe be blamed that he googles the nearest store that sells lingerie as he walks out of the casino.)

He does think it’s ridiculous that Americans are so proud of their stupid, ugly eagles, but the store has a table full of exactly what he’s looking for. He spends a full hour choosing the right sizes, the right cuts, the right colors.

It’s only when he’s finished shopping (for food) that Booker begins to emerge from his haze of arousal and lack of sleep to wonder if he’s crossed a line.

He mulls it over in the car on the way back to the apartment, mentally retracing each set of underwear in his mind. They were meant for Nicky, was all. Meant for him and Joe. Maybe he could sell it as a peace offering.

Joe and Nicky are both sitting at the kitchen table, unfortunately fully clothed, when Booker gets back. He wonders what Nicky’s got on underneath.

“Did you get—” Joe begins hopefully.

“Yes, I got you Weetabix,” Booker says, tossing him the package.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Joe says earnestly. Booker is, literally, although he would argue that getting terrible cereal doesn’t really count in his favor in that regard.

It is gratifying to watch though, how Joe hums to himself a little as he slips open the tab on the yellow box, as he pulls out the long, thin stack of Weetabix in their white plastic packaging. He has the whole process down to an art – crushes two of the weird blocks of grain still in the package and only then opens it up to pour the crushed-up cereal into his bowl. Then, he puts three heaping spoonfuls of sugar on top and drowns the whole mess in milk.

“Britain’s healthiest breakfast,” Nicky drawls, sipping his coffee.

Joe blows a raspberry at him, succeeding mostly in getting flakes of Weetabix in both their drinks.

It’s disgusting.

Booker loves these assholes _so much_ , it’s upsetting.

He knows that Nicky has spent the last several hundred years, ever since sugar became readily accessible, being deeply annoyed that Joe and Andy can both just put it away like it’s nothing while he tends to put on weight in every downtime. In all honesty, it’s probably also because Joe and Andy are both people who exercise for fun, while Nicky cooks to relax, but Booker’s wise enough to say nothing about that.

He knows also that Joe loves the softness of Nicky’s stomach, that he murmurs praise and endearments behind closed doors that Booker hasn’t been able to help but overhear. The first time, many years ago, it had been a painful reminder of Amélie and how she’d fretted over stretch marks and weight gain after each of their sons, as if the woman who had born his children, who’d loved him for what had then been half his life, who’d taken each day with a sanguinity and serenity he could not, would ever be less than wondrous to him.

Booker supposes there has always been something about Joe and Nicky’s love that felt familiar to him, like a song he’s known since childhood, only for the refrain to change the tune entirely when the door that must inevitably remain closed between them slams in his face.

Nicky is thankfully distracting by sifting the flecks of Weetabix out of his coffee and cursing at Joe in Italian and doesn’t spot Booker’s distraction, but he won’t stay distracted forever, so Booker sets to work on the rest of the groceries.

“Are we making ravioli today?” Nicky asks as Booker puts the frozen spinach in the freezer.

“I suppose,” Booker says, realizing that he did shop for that, because there was no list and he just bought whatever he felt like. Copley is going to regret the ludicrous amount of money he set these aliases up with.

“I’ll need your help, then,” Nicky says, ignoring Joe’s pout. Joe hasn’t been allowed to help make ravioli since he ate all the filling in Budapest in 1916 while Nicky was making dough. “Some people can’t be trusted around ricotta.”

“Sure,” Booker says, trying to ignore the desperate drumbeat of his heart at being included.

“What’s in the last bag?” Joe asks, mouth full.

Booker swallows.

“Uh,” he says.

Nicky, a predator at heart, leans forward. “Something secret?” He asks, tone mild, face impassive. “Something you’re going to hide from us?”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Booker says. “How many more times will I have to say it? I’m sorry I’m an idiot, I’m sorry I got you captured, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I’m sorry you’re stuck with me until Copley lets me go back into exile. I’ll spend the next ninety-nine years finding better apologies.”

Sighing, Nicky looks over to Joe.

Joe shrugs. “He doesn’t know what to apologize for, tesoro. He’ll figure it out; he’s clever.”

Booker grits his teeth.

“So what’s in the bag?” Joe asks, as if nothing had happened.

Booker tosses the whole bag at Nicky. “Looked like you could use some replacements,” he says gruffly, face burning. He leaves the kitchen to take a very long, lukewarm shower.

* * *

Of course, that is not the end of it.

That afternoon, as Booker is painstakingly placing dots of ricotta-parmesan-spinach-egg mixture on the pasta dough, Joe comes in. At first, Booker moves to shield the filling with his body, but Joe just sits down, legs sprawled, watching as Booker works. Nicky’s slicing steak strips by the stove, back turned.

“Thank you for your gift, Sébastien,” Joe says. There’s a timbre to his voice, low and rich and amused and pleased. If Booker could wear the sound on his skin, he would.

“You’re welcome,” Booker says, glad he has an excuse to not make eye contact.

Joe sighs contentedly. One of his long legs stretches out, his arms behind his head. For a long moment, Booker thinks that’s that.

Then Joe says, “There’s something really special about fucking Nicky when he wears them, you know.”

Because Booker emphatically does not know, he doesn’t answer.

“They stretch so tight,” Joe says dreamily. “His cock always peeks out the top, when we really get going. It’s too big to stay inside.”

Booker makes a noise like an unoiled hinge creaking open.

“I had him on his knees,” Joe continues. “He had teased me for ages, covered my cock in that fucking chocolate frosting, it’s no wonder he wasn’t hungry for breakfast. You’d think he’d be soft, like that, on his knees, in his pretty, lacy underthings, licking chocolate off of me.”

Booker laughs a little hysterically. “Nicky is never soft.”

Nicky looks over at him for the first time since this has begun, flashing him a terrifying grin.

“No,” Joe agrees. “Nicky is not. He made me so wild for him I was nearly out of my mind. And he was just kneeling there, licking the chocolate off his lips.”

Booker can picture it.

After a long pause, Joe asks, “Don’t you want to know what he did with me?”

“Please,” Booker says, wishing he didn’t sound as desperate as he feels. He chances a look over at Joe. Joe still looks upsettingly relaxed, legs spread wide, arms behind his head, but his cock is clearly outlined by his linen pants.

“He had me wait,” Joe says pleasantly. “While he fingered himself open. He held onto the headboard and pushed his panties to the side and just stretched himself, easy as anything, and he told me that if I didn’t keep my hands to myself, he’d go sit on your cock instead of letting me come.”

Booker’s hand slips on the spoon. It clatters into the bowl with a loud clang. He would be a little embarrassed if there was any blood at all in his head.

“As much as I’d like to see that,” Joe continues, “I was a little desperate by then. So I kept my hands to myself and waited until he had four fingers in himself.”

Booker’s lips part.

Nicky turns around to study them both, eyes bright, pupils wide. “You know what Joe did then?” He asks, voice raspy. “He fucked me so hard the headboard left a dent in the wall.”

Booker moans.

“He ripped my underwear, too,” Nicky says, sounding a little displeased. “I’m so glad you bought me new ones. They were my favorites.”

“Nicky came in the old pair, anyway,” Joe adds. “Just stroked himself off through the fabric while I fucked him.”

“It was very thoughtful of you, to get me some replacements,” Nicky says, looking directly at Booker.

Booker thinks he might have an aneurysm.

“Though they’re not all really my style.”

“I thought some might look good on Joe,” Booker admits, amazed his mouth is still working at all.

Joe smiles broadly. “You’re so good to us,” he says, and Booker whimpers, knees buckling.

“Look at you,” Nicky says softly. “You just need a good stroke or two, don’t you.”

Booker nods, desperate.

“Go on then,” Joe says magnanimously.

Booker presses the heel of his hand to his erection, grinding himself against it, and comes, just like that, leaning against the kitchen counter. His head is swimming with it, it’s too much, pooling hot in his boxers, pulse after pulse, until it’s leaking through his jeans in sticky white drops.

“Well done,” Nicky praises.

A last pulse shoots through Booker and he groans.

By the time he’s showered and changed, dinner is ready.

* * *

The next day, Booker gets back from taking a walk to find Joe sprawled across the couch that doubles as Booker’s bed, basketball shorts slung so low on his hips that the edge of the hot pink silk panties Booker bought him peeks out the top.

Booker didn’t even _want_ to go for a walk.

It’s _Las Vegas._ In _July_.

Going outside is like walking through _soup_.

Being in this apartment is like being trapped in a steam cooker.

* * *

On Wednesday, Booker reads the _Washington Post_ , which is how he knows it’s Wednesday. He and Joe make tagliatelle al salmone for dinner.

“How long do you think we’ll be in Vegas for?” Joe asks, pouring cream into the sauce liberally. Nicky’s not there to slap his wrist and Joe wants Nicky to be happy and well-fed. Booker’s not going to say anything about it to either of them.

“However long Copley thinks we need to lay low, I guess,” Booker says. He’s been trying hard not to think about it.

Joe snorts, adding a dash of paprika and a spritz of lemon juice. “That could be years.”

“Years?” Booker asks, not sure if he’s terrified or elated.

“What?” Joe asks, turning slightly to the left to watch Booker ladle the fresh pasta slowly into the boiling water. “Sick of us already?”

Booker smiles at him. “Not at all,” he says. “I have ninety-nine years left, though, and I…want to get them over with. This is making me feel like everything is normal.”

Joe is silent for a long time.

“Nothing about this is normal,” he says, voice raw.

They don’t talk over dinner.

Afterwards, Booker makes his excuses and heads back to the casinos. He’s not in the mood for skill, so he plays roulette for a few rounds. He watches happy young people zipline up and down the covered street, gets pickpocketed by three separate desperate people who need the cash more than him.

He wonders when he became someone who could help, rather than someone who needed help.

Sooner than he realized it.

Maybe he’s never been one or other entirely.

He comes back so late that the door to Joe and Nicky’s room is closed, the lights are out.

He puts in earplugs, to pretend they’re not still talking about him.

* * *

On Thursday, Booker ruins what might have been a solid plan of Joe and Nicky's to fuck on his bed by coming back from his morning run ten minutes too early (look, it took him three days to realize he wasn’t going to be sleeping late any time soon without the alcohol that had been his constant companion for years, and he has to tire himself out somehow. Mornings are the only bearable time to run in Nevada.)

Nicky is fucking Joe down into the mess of blankets Booker sleeps in, wearing sheer black stockings held up by a suspender belt.

The door slams shut behind Booker and all of them freeze.

Joe groans, sounding almost pained. “Don’t stop,” he begs, but it’s in clear, perfect English.

Booker’s lived with, or at least near, these men for long enough to know that if he were really that desperate, Joe would be speaking something Booker can’t understand. Maltese, maybe. Some distant relative of Arabic. Not English, a language they learned together.

No, Joe wants Nicky to keep fucking him right where Booker can see it.

Hell, if they’re fucking on his bed, there’s no logical way they don’t want him to know. To see.

He’s been putting off analyzing that strange moment in the kitchen, a few days ago, but all signs point to them _wanting_ him here, for this.

He stumbles toward them, legs numb from running and shock.

Up close, he can see the obscene drip of lube, squelching around Nicky’s cock as he grinds deeper and tighter into Joe. There’s a wet spot on the sheets underneath them.

Joe’s got his legs hitched up around Nicky’s hips. For all Booker’s always admired the strength of Nicky’s thighs, Joe’s are currently making him lose his mind. If he could put his mouth there – on the soft inner side, where his trembling is most obvious, where his body hair is the least, where the skin is the thinnest, if he could use his tongue to show what—

But he can’t, so he lets himself fall dizzily into the chair beside them, watching as Nicky leans forward, one hand planted either side of Joe’s head, using his body to press Joe’s legs down as he fucks in hard. The rasp of his stockings against the sheets forms a counterpoint to his panted breaths, Joe’s bitten-off moans. His ass is flexing with each thrust and the contrast, the power of his movements with the delicacy of the stockings, sends Booker’s pulse through the roof.

They’re never loud in bed – Booker’s never heard them, before, that is to say – but this is better, almost, the bitten-off sounds, like he’s been invited to share one of their secrets.

Joe tosses his head to the side, opens his eyes and suddenly, he and Booker are looking at each other. Joe’s eyes are dark, almost liquid, his mouth is open, he looks like a dream Booker didn’t dare have.

“Joe,” punches out of his mouth without his consent.

Joe’s eyes screw shut as he comes all over his own stomach.

Nicky is still hard when he pulls out. His cock is a wet, red line up his stomach as he draws back with an animal grace that makes Booker shiver.

He’s breathing hard, his chest heaving, as he levers himself off from Joe, who is flat on his back, eyes closed, whole body flushed.

And then, while Booker is still just trying to process the visual input of this moment, Nicky settles down on his lap, one stocking-clad knee on either side of Booker’s hips. The soft material sends a frisson up Booker’s spine, rasping against his bare legs below the cut of his running shorts.

“Hello, Sébastien,” Nicky says, voice low and seductive.

Booker swallows heavily.

This is Nicky.

Nicky who can spend hours at a time in a sniper’s nest. Nicky who didn’t talk to him for a week when they disagreed on _Madame Bovary_ more than a hundred years ago. Nicky who loves decadent, rich foods, but feels guilty for eating them, like a true Catholic. Nicky, who will glare daggers at anyone who dares breathe too loudly when Joe falls asleep with his head in Nicky’s lap. Nicky, who bullied Andy into letting them adopt a cat on Cyprus once.

Nicky, who is leaning in to kiss Booker.

“Wait,” Booker says, panicked, drawing back. “Stop.”

It’s almost comical, how they all freeze.

Joe’s eyes snap open again, afterglow gone.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says, pulling away from Booker to stand.

It’s a wrench, the loss of his heat, and Booker is still miserably hard.

“What did I do?” Nicky asks.

“No!” Booker says quickly. “No! You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I knew we had to talk about this,” Joe groans, righting himself at last from where he’d been comatose on the couch. “I’m so sorry, Sébastien.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Booker says, trying to sort through his hormones and his emotions at the same time. It doesn’t work.

“Of course I do,” Joe says, unbearably gentle in the way only he can be. “I started this.”

Booker laughs hoarsely. “I think I was the one who bought Nicky women’s underwear.”

“Speaking of,” Nicky says. “I’m going to change if we’re going to have the serious talk now.” He disappears into the bedroom.

Joe pulls Booker’s blanket over his lap.

It will smell like Joe, like sweat and come, when Booker goes to sleep tonight.

 _God_.

“This was all my idea,” Joe says. “I should have asked your permission, on Monday, before I started telling you all about Nicky’s and my sex life. Before I started involving you.”

“I very clearly wasn’t complaining,” Booker says, flushing hot all over just thinking about it.

“That’s not the same thing as having your consent,” Joe says.

“I don’t deserve—”

“Stop _saying_ that,” Joe bursts out, heavy and angry and sad. “Stop acting like we’re going to send you back into exile _now_ , after everything.”

“You’re not?” Booker asks. He doesn’t recognize his own voice.

“Of course we’re not,” Joe says. “What kind of monsters do you take us for? You were tortured for…for months, by our sister. We’re not letting you out of our sights for at least as long as your exile was supposed to be.”

Something like warmth spreads in Booker’s stomach. He hasn’t felt that in so long he doesn’t even know what it means. There’s blood buzzing in his ears.

“But,” he says. “I got you tortured, too.”

Joe sighs. “Yes, Sébastien, you did. I still wake up some nights, dreaming of that lab. That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you or wanting the best for you.”

“Like Quynh?” His lips have gone numb.

“She’s our sister,” Joe says. “I will never stop loving her and wanting the best for her, no matter what awful things she’s done.”

“Does that make me your brother?”

Usually, it’s easier to meet Joe’s eyes than Nicky’s. Joe’s kind, always kind, always smiling with his eyes if nothing else. Nicky’s fury can burn.

Today, Joe’s eyes are blazing.

“I had a brother,” he says. “A very, very long time ago. I do not feel about you how I did about him.”

Nicky reappears in Joe’s basketball shorts and a loose T-shirt, and his legs are shaved, Booker can tell now, and he wishes more than anything he had just let Nicky kiss him.

“How do you feel about Sébastien?” Nicky asks calmly, coming to sit between the two of them.

Joe laughs, but it isn’t a good sound, it’s almost a sob. “I wish I knew. I love him. I want him. I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m _frustrated_.”

Nicky looks over to Booker, eyebrow raised. “Well,” he says. “What do you have to say?”

“I’m sorry,” Booker says desperately. “Je suis désolée,” he adds, because it’s truer in French, he is miserable and inconsolable and so very sorry.

“What for?” Nicky asks.

“Everything!” Booker says. “I’m sorry I was so caught up in my own feelings I didn’t consider yours, I’m sorry I got you hurt, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you earlier, I’m sorry I messed up whatever this was, because I’ve loved you for – a very long time now, and I couldn’t bear to have a quick fuck and then go back to exile.”

Nicky makes an impatient noise. “You’re not going back to exile,” he says.

“So I’ve been told,” Booker says, because he is, at heart, an asshole.

“You’ve loved us?” Joe asks hoarsely.

“Of course I have,” Booker says. “How could I not? You’re so—so—”

“Why would you not _talk_ to us, then?” Joe bursts out before Booker can finish considering what they are. “Why would you not tell us how bad you were feeling, why not let us help? Why sell us out to the first asshole who offered?”

“Because I thought you’d be better off rid of me,” Booker offers. “Because I thought we’d all be better off if I could just…look away from you. Die in peace. Not always be—imposing my need on you.”

“You were wrong,” Nicky says.

“So I’ve been told.”

Joe reaches out, grasps at Booker’s hands. “Sébastien,” he says earnestly. “You must tell us. Do you still want that more than anything? Death? Because if you do, you don’t need our love, or sex, you need our help.”

Booker takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“No,” he says.

“No,” he says, and realizes it’s true. “I haven’t wanted that since I, since I shot Andy. I’m not sure I ever did.”

He’s crying, he realizes, mortifyingly.

“What were you thinking, love?” Joe asks him. “Walk us through it.”

Booker rubs the hand Joe isn’t holding shakily over his face. “I was thinking – I was thinking that I was so alone. That everyone who loved me, truly loved me, had died blaming me for it. I was thinking that I was jealous of you, when what I actually felt was that I wanted you to let me in, to let me—let me touch you, like you touch each other, hold you and be held. And I blamed myself, because I thought I would never forget Amélie.”

“You never will,” Joe tells him. “Loving us – that doesn’t take away space in your heart, just adds to it.”

Sébastien could get lost in Joe’s eyes, like this. Could lean forwards, press their lips together, and just let himself have this. But—

“Et toi, Nicky?” He asks.

Joe laughs, full-bellied, the way he should always laugh. “He’s caught you out, my heart,” Joe says to Nicky.

There’s a little smile tugging around Nicky’s lips, but his eyes are earnest. “You broke our trust,” he says. “And I am…slower to forget than Joe. I understand your pain, and why you did it, but it will take me time to adjust. I don’t love you less than he does. I’m just more careful with my heart.”

“Because he is not and someone needs to guard him,” Booker guesses.

Nicky’s half-smile blossoms into a full-fledged grin.

“I’m _right_ _here_ ,” Joe complains. “I can take care of myself.”

“But why should you, when I am here to take care of you?” Nicky asks, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

They’re silent for a long moment, while Booker gets himself back under control, wipes at his eyes.

“Sébastien,” Nicky starts eventually. “If you understand, now, that this is not a fuck before we send you back to exile…”

“Yes,” Booker agrees. “I’m not sure what it is, but you say you love me, and unlike me, you have never given reason not to trust you.”

“I don’t know where you were in São Paolo,” Nicky says dryly. “We must remember that very differently.”

Joe elbows him. “We are going to try this, the three of us,” he says, “that is what it is. And we will talk about it and see how it goes, like the very grown-up men we are.”

“Right,” Nicky says. “If we are agreed upon that, may I kiss you now?”

“Yes,” Sébastien says. “Yes, you may.”

* * *

There is a hazy span of days, between that conversation and its natural conclusion, in which things slow down.

They still cook together, as they have for many years – paella for Booker that night; American pancakes with turkey bacon on the side for Joe the next; lahmacun for Nicky on Saturday; focaccia with antipasti for all of them on Sunday.

Booker takes them with him, to go to the casino. Nicky loves the slot machines. Joe mutters to himself about it being a scam the entire time they’re there, but he lets Booker and Nicky crowd close together and try to get the best of the machine.

They go running in the mornings, together, and Joe grumbles when he has to get out of bed, but Nicky grumbles when he has to put on running shoes. Booker discovers, if he wears his smallest running shorts, they both complain a little less.

There is far too much kissing for Booker to stay even slightly sane.

The delicate little kisses Joe presses to the side of his neck when he steals food while they’re cooking.

The exuberant smacking kisses Nicky gives him when they win against the slot machine.

The sweaty, hot kisses he and Joe share against the wall by the bathroom after a run, keyed up on endorphins and waiting for Nicky to get out of the shower.

The deep, wet, drugging kisses Nicky gives him when he gets out of the shower, half naked and dripping.

It’s been a very long time since kissing was a part of Booker’s day, something that happened regularly. He’d forgotten how much he likes it, the intimacy of it, the way the same gesture can mean so many different things.

It probably shouldn’t be a shock when Joe says, several days later, “Could we talk about sex, now?”

Booker had just been kissing him, again, had him on his back on the sofa bed and kissed him slow and deep, because Joe had been teasing him all afternoon, little tiny pecks, soft brushes of his lips, the hint of the scrape of his beard for just a moment – Booker is easy bait for that, because he can’t get enough touch. He has realized, starkly, in the last few days, that apart from Andy’s brief hugs, the most touch he’s had in years has been the occasional alcohol-fueled one night stand. To be touched, so continuously, so intimately, by Joe and Nicky, is a very different matter.

That is to say, when Joe asks if they can talk about sex, Booker shudders in his arms and moans into his shoulder.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Joe grins, squirming underneath him to sit up.

Booker keeps him caged in, because Joe may be better in a fight – quicker and more experienced – but Booker has him on mass alone and it’s a little satisfying, to weigh Joe down with his body.

“ _Oh_ ,” Joe says. “Well.” He clears his throat and squirms again, head tilting back. “We should talk about that too.”

“Is Sébastien teasing you again?” Nicky asks, amused, strolling over from the kitchen.

He has three cups of espresso, two clutched in one hand, and he settles in the chair Booker was in, only a few days ago, when everything changed.

“Yes,” Joe moans, and Booker has to shut his eyes against the idea of having this much power over Joe.

“You’re going to have to let him up a little, just for now,” Nicky says calmly, sipping his coffee.

Booker leans back reluctantly, letting Joe sit up. His lips are bee-stung, swollen. He’s hard in his basketball shorts. Booker’s mouth waters.

He clears his throat.

“So,” Nicky says, a little amused. “Joe likes being held down, sometimes.”

“Uh-huh,” Booker says.

“What do you like?” Joe asks.

“Anything,” Booker says on autopilot.

Joe frowns, mouth opened, about to speak, but Nicky gets there first.

“So,” he says easily. “If I were to say I want to watch you vomit and get off on that…?”

“People do that?” Booker asks blankly.

“People do everything. You must know what you’re agreeing to before you agree to it,” Nicky tells him sternly.

“I don’t think I’m into vomiting,” Booker says. “Sorry if you were—”

“That was an example, Bas,” Nicky says. “For something extreme. This is why we’d like to talk about it beforehand. So you can set boundaries, and so we can set boundaries.”

Unbidden, Booker remembers a night, perhaps forty or fifty years ago, when he tried ecstasy for the first time, because a hook-up he’d met at a bar in the Castro slipped a pill onto his tongue while they were kissing. “That makes sense,” he says.

“Basti,” Joe says, sounding sad. “Do you want to tell us—”

“Not right now,” Booker says. “I would rather – enjoy what’s new between us and let the past be in the past. If, I mean, Nicky, you said you couldn’t forget Merrick – “

“I have no intention of bringing our work lives into the bedroom,” Nicky says dryly.

Joe’s right eyebrow lifts. “What about that time in Monaco, when I was wearing the—”

“I _usually_ have no intention of bringing our work lives into the bedroom,” Nicky amends. “Don’t make this more complicated, tesoro.”

“Could you maybe walk me through your likes and dislikes?” Booker asks. “So I understand what to say?”

“Mm-hm,” Joe says, leaning back, stretching his arms over his head. It’s a good look on him. “But you’ll have to promise us something, first?”

For a moment, Booker wants to say _anything_ , but he stops himself. “What?”

“Good, he’s learning,” Nicky says.

“Promise us you won’t just tell us you like everything we like,” Joe says softly, ignoring Nicky. “Promise us you’ll be honest. The last thing we want to do is hurt you because we don’t know better. Again.”

Booker swallows against his own guilt. “I promise.”

“Good boy,” Joe grins.

A shiver runs down Booker’s spine.

By the look Joe and Nicky exchange, they’ve noticed that.

“So,” Nicky says. “I enjoy most kinds of fucking – hands, mouths, thighs, ass – in either direction. But I get myself off most of the time when I'm the one being fucked. When it’s someone else touching me, it can get too hard to explain how to touch me just right to come, and then I don’t, and it’s very frustrating when it gets all drawn out. I don’t like that. I like a little pain, but nothing that would remind me of work, and I like being on top. Any questions?”

For a minute, Booker’s mind is blank, just picturing Nicky desperately stroking himself off.

Too late, he answers, “Yes, you said you like fucking in either direction, but you like being on top?”

Nicky shrugs. “Fucking or getting fucked, I like being on top either way. Not exclusively, but particularly.”

Booker takes a deep breath, fighting his own arousal. “You like – you like the panties, as well, don’t you?”

Nicky’s smile is like a shark’s. “Very much,” he says. “They make me feel…” he trails off, snapping his fingers as he searches for the word. “Powerful. Sexual.”

Joe is the one who makes a strangled noise at that, but Booker feels it in his soul.

“We both like a lot of things like that,” Joe adds. “Beautiful clothes. Toys. Restraints. There’s a lot of fun you can have these days.”

“I’ve never tried anything like that,” Booker admits. “Seeing you in – in those clothes, that was the first time I…thought about that.”

“But you liked it.”

“I came in my pants in the middle of cooking dinner, Joe, of course I liked it.” Booker reminds him. He had been intending to wipe that smug grin off Joe’s face but realizes too late that saying that will have the opposite effect.

Joe stretches a little further, arching his back, displaying his hardness where it pushes against the thin material of his shorts.

“That was very inspiring,” Joe agrees. “I like that a lot. When things get a little messy, when you can’t hold back and just have to come. Nicky’s a little more fastidious, but he indulges me sometimes. Otherwise, in terms of positions and, ah, giving and receiving, I’m as flexible as Nicky. I don’t like being hurt beyond a light slap. I really like when Nicky’s on top, in all ways.”

“Joe also comes a lot easier than I do,” Nicky adds. “He likes being strung along a little.”

“Mm,” Joe says. “It’s always better when you wait a little longer for it.”

“Fuck,” Booker hisses out.

“So,” Joe says, turning his absolutely shit-eating grin on Booker full-force. “Can you tell us now? What you like?”

“I liked when you told me I had been good to you,” Booker says, and then flushes red, which is interesting, because he hadn’t thought there was enough blood left in his head to do that. “I like…” He thinks back over the years, his most satisfying encounters, back all the way to his wife. “I like when I know my partner is satisfied, when I know I’ve made them feel good. I don’t like anonymity, I don’t like just getting off without it meaning something. I really, really liked seeing you in women’s underthings. I don’t really know much more, yet.” Because his face is already on fire, and because he promised to be honest, he adds, “I like to be held, after.”

Once, when they were very young and not quite yet accustomed to each other, Booker had turned away from Amélie, afterwards. She had turned with him and clung to his back like a rucksack. He has never felt so comforted, before or since.

“Oh, _Bas_ ,” Nicky says softly. “That, we will promise you.”

Joe does him one better, kneeling up to wrap his arms around Booker. “Anytime you like,” he says into Booker’s hair. “Regardless of sex.”

Booker breathes deeply into Joe’s chest, smelling his beard oil and his sweat (it’s still Las Vegas).

* * *

With their coffees finished, they shower.

The stall is too small for all three of them to fit at once, and Nicky frowns – pouts a little, really – when he says that he’d rather no one watch him do what he has to in the shower. Joe rolls his eyes and reminds him it’s been nearly a millennium and he’s seen every bodily fluid Nicky has to offer, and Nicky reminds Joe that just because he’s seen it before doesn’t mean he needs to see it again, and Booker, caught between them, adores their intimacy.

Joe goes first, and Nicky uses the time to kiss Booker senseless against the door to the bedroom.

He might not have as much experience with what, precisely, he likes and dislikes in bed, but Booker can already tell that the way Nicky presses into him, a little firm, a little harsh, is very much something he likes, and the way Nicky cards a gentle hand through his hair is something he likes even more.

“The underwear,” Nicky says, hot against the side of Booker’s neck. “Did you have a favorite pair?”

Most of Booker’s functioning brain cells are settled in his cock right now, telling him to get on his knees and worship Nicky. Therefor, he answers, “The sea-green one. They match your eyes.”

“ _Bas_ ,” Nicky says, not a little fondly.

When it’s Nicky’s turn in the shower, Joe gets him past the door into the bedroom, whispering filthy promises in his ear as he grinds their hips together, slow and filthy. “Nicky wants to be on top, this time,” he says, as if that isn’t enough to drive Booker wild. “But maybe, after, you could take me, too? If you can wait that long? Basti, you’re so _big_ , I’d like to be covered in you, I’d like to mark you up with my come, I want you wrapped all around me…”

Booker is amazed he makes it through his own shower without slipping and cracking his head open on the tiles, he’s that far gone.

Thankfully, he’s also too far gone to second-guess himself, leaves the towel slung over the shower rail and goes back to the bedroom naked.

He’s greeted by the sight of Joe on his back, with all his limbs wrapped around Nicky, head thrown back, Nicky’s broad hips and gorgeous thighs bracketed between his legs as he tongues at the sensitive line where Joe’s beard ends and his neck begins.

Nicky’s wearing the panties.

Booker’s on his knees beside the bed before he knows what he’s doing.

“Please,” he says hoarsely. “Please can I put my mouth on you.”

They turn their heads to look at him as one.

Nicky’s eyes are bright with arousal. “Which one of us?” He asks.

“You decide,” Booker says. “Both. I don’t care, just please, let me make you feel good.”

Joe’s smile is almost too gentle for how open and raw Booker feels right now. “We’ll use you just right, sweetheart.”

Booker’s mouth waters.

“Start with Joe,” Nicky commands, rolling off Joe to give Booker room. “Suck his cock a bit.”

Booker settles between Joe’s thighs, presses kisses along the paper-thin skin leading up to his groin just like he imagined only days ago. Joe’s hard, cut, his pubic hair trimmed but not shaved. Booker has to close his eyes a moment. He’s a forger, not an artist, but at the same time, it can only be termed a failure of imagination that he has never pictured this before.

He moans when he gets his mouth on Joe’s cock.

Not wanting to be too much, he holds himself back at first, tonguing the head, sinking down neatly and pulling back up.

Then Joe groans and hooks his legs over Booker’s shoulders.

Then Joe says, “Basti, you feel so good.”

Booker drools when he sinks down all the way on Joe’s cock, letting it into his throat.

Joe groans louder.

Right. Joe likes it when it gets a little messy.

Booker’s eyes slide shut and he lets himself get greedy. Chokes himself on it, pulls back to savor the taste at the spongey head, where a drop of precome must have already leaked out.

“Good boy,” Nicky says gently from beside them, and Booker makes a little noise around Joe’s cock.

“You’re making him feel so good,” Nicky says, stroking through Booker’s hair as he sinks down to take Joe deep again. “He’s flushed all down his chest. He loves what you’re doing to him. You’re such a good boy for us, Sébastien.”

Booker hips hump down into the sheets of their own accord and he picks up the pace, fucking his mouth down on Joe’s cock again and again.

Joe’s legs tighten around his head, heels digging into his shoulders. “Fuck,” he gasps out, “Fuck, oh, Seb – Basti – fuck –”

Nicky drags Booker off by his hair.

“He was almost there,” Nicky says conversationally.

Joe is flat on his back, panting to the ceiling, his legs splayed out either side of Booker’s head. “He’s right,” Joe says breathlessly. He reaches down blindly to stroke his fingers across Booker’s jaw. “You are a delight.”

Booker _shivers_ with delight.

“How are you?” Nicky asks. “Do you feel up to making me feel good, as well?”

Booker nods eagerly, not quite ready to speak.

“May I sit on your face?” Nicky asks. So polite.

Booker rolls over onto his back, his lower legs dangling off the end of the bed, as he pull Nicky on top of him.

Nicky laughs, delighted, but Booker only hears half of it as his ears get smothered by Nicky’s thighs.

This, he has imagined, but he would defy anyone to not imagine Nicky’s thighs after having seen them. The lace of the panties scratches across Booker’s nose and he pulls them aside, a bit too roughly. It doesn’t matter; he can always get new ones. He knows where, now.

Licking up into Nicky is a wonder. Booker’s never done this exact thing before – it seemed like a lot, with a random hook-up he would never see again, and frankly, hygiene wasn’t what it is now, when he still had Amélie. It’s similar, in some ways, to eating out a woman. Booker’s favorite part of that was always when he got to spear his tongue up and into her hole, which didn’t really do a lot for many of the women Booker’s slept with unless they were particularly pleased by dominating him a little.

For Nicky, it seems to be just right.

He sighs and moans, little choked-off noises, nothing as loud as Joe but just as gratifying, especially when Booker notices the way his thighs shake around Booker’s ears.

His own cock is standing up straight, hard and red against his stomach. There’s no stimulation to it, right now, but that hardly matters.

Joe, left to watch for now, keeps up Nicky’s previous stream of gentle praise and Booker lets himself get lost in it, get lost in feeling and touching and smelling and tasting and hearing these men all around him.

When Nicky kneels up to get off him, he chases after Nicky’s hole, single-minded, no, mindless.

Nicky laughs breathlessly.

“You’ll get your fill, tesoro,” he says. His voice has never been so warm, so adoring before.

He Joe presses a bottle of lube into Booker’s lax hand. “Get me ready, dear heart?” He asks, a twinkle in his eye.

Joe takes Nicky’s place, kneeling above Booker as Booker slides his fingers in one at a time, gentle, reverent. He is being given a gift, and he adores every moment. The spread of Joe’s perfect ass above him is only one part of that; the way Joe sinks to his elbows when he’s carried away by the feeling are another.

By three fingers, Joe’s arms are shaking. Booker’s bicep is going numb, with his arm lifted up to finger Joe more effectively. 

But Joe is breathing hot against Booker’s thigh, saying, “Just like that, Basti, just like that, fuck me so good, can’t wait till it’s you cock,” and Booker is floating above himself.

Joe’s cock is hard, red line, just in Booker’s line of sight, and he cranes his neck to get it back in his mouth.

Above him, Joe shakes. 

“Enough now,” Nicky says sweetly, and Joe pulls away, revealing Nicky, laid out against the pillows, fucking himself on his own fingers. Joe crawls in between his thighs to press a reverent kiss to the swell of his cock, trapped in place by his panties.

Joe likes when Nicky’s on top, Booker remembers. In all ways. 

Guided by Nicky, Booker slides up the headboard until he’s resting against the headboard.

“I believe we promised you a few things,” Nicky says, settling easily on Booker’s lap.

He did this before, when he asked to kiss Booker. Booker remembers the whisper of his silk stockings. God, the stockings and the underwear, together. That would be a sight.

“Do you ever wear more?” He asks, mouth numb.

“More?” Nicky asks innocently, grinding down against Booker’s as-yet untouched cock.

“Lingerie,” Booker says, trailing his hands up Nicky’s thighs. “You, in a negligée, those stockings--”

Joe groans next to him. 

“Basti,” he says, stroking his own cock slowly. “I’m dying here already.”

Nicky leans down to kiss him, deeply, quickly, wetly. “I might, for you,” he says, and then he reaches down to grip Booker’s cock and sinks down on him.

Booker has to clench his eyes shut to not thrust up instantly. 

“Mm,” Nicky moans. “Good boy, staying still for me.”

The panties are stretched tight, pushed to the side so Booker’s cock has space to fuck up into Nicky. The squelch of lube drips out onto them, and they’ll be ruined, just like the last pair, but Booker cannot regret it even a little, not when Nicky is sighing and throwing his head back, clenching and unclenching rhythmically around Booker.

He leans back just a little. “Oh,” he moans. “That’s it. You can fuck me now, tesoro.”

With his knees angled up, Booker only just has enough leverage to thrust, but he discovers quickly that Nicky doesn’t want him to thrust so much as he wants Booker to grind up into him at just the right angle. 

It drives him a little crazy, how Nicky’s the one getting fucked, but he’s really just using Booker for his own pleasure, fisting his own cock and letting himself be fucked.

With his mouth free for the first time, Booker can’t help telling him all about how good it feels, how used he feels.

Nicky cards his free hand through Booker’s hair. “Yes,” he says softly. “Tell me, Bas, tell me what we’re doing to you.”

“You’re making me yours,” Booker gasps. “ _Please_ , Nicky.”

“Go on, then,” Nicky tells him. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

He grinds down hard as Booker fucks up and Booker can’t help himself, fucking up as hard as he can. Nicky strokes himself faster, and a series of whines and moans escape him. He’s more out of control than Booker’s seen him all night, he realizes.

On impulse, he reaches up, strokes along Nicky’s back, thumbs at his nipples, worships him as well as he can. He has a hard time coming, Booker remembers, and doesn’t like being teased. 

He’s _glorious_.

Booker puts his back into it, fucking up hard and steady, in time to the way Nicky’s stroking himself. 

When Nicky comes, it’s hard. He flushes all the way down his chest, his ass clenching tight around Booker and his mouth falling open. Come spatters the panties, Nicky’s abdomen, Booker’s belly. A little, satisfied groan leaves Nicky’s throat.

Panting, Nicky lifts himself off of Booker’s cock and lays down on his left.

“Basti,” Joe says to Booker’s right. 

Booker looks over at him.

He’s wild-eyed, stroking himself far too quickly.

“I can’t,” he says. “I just--” 

Wrenching his hand away, Joe pounds his other fist into the mattress, writhing on the bed. “Fuck,” he says, staring over at Booker with hungry eyes. He likes being teased. “Is it my turn?” He asks.

Booker rolls on top of him, settling between his thighs. 

Joe spreads for him, easy.

Booker’s hips and thighs are already used, already sore, but he’s immortal and he’ll heal and nothing, _nothing_ , could stop him from sinking into Joe where he’s stretched wet and open, _where Booker stretched him wet and open_ , as deep as he can go. 

“You look beautiful,” Nicky says hoarsely from beside them, propped up on his elbow. “Come on, Sébastien. Fuck him like you mean it.”

It’s not a long fuck.

Both of them are keyed up, on edge; Joe’s been right on the edge at least twice tonight already. The way he keens when Booker gives it to him deep, the way he hitches his hips up higher and smiles into each kiss, all of it conspires to let the fever pitch of arousal Booker has felt ever since they laid out for him in exact terms what exactly they liked in bed come to a boil.

He’s held out long enough, hasn’t he?

He fucks Joe hard, hips rabbiting deep, keeping Joe’s thighs pressed back so he gets the angle right. His face is buried in the crook of Joe’s shoulder, almost sobbing with how good it is, how close he is.

“Yes,” Joe whispers into his ear. “Just there, just there.” He squirms a hand between them - Booker would, he wants, but he’d lose his balance instantly, and Joe’s barely started stroking himself when he’s already yelling out, head thrown back where Booker’s sucking temporary marks into his neck, coming thickly between them, getting it all over them both, hot and sticky and so fucking good Booker nearly loses his sanity.

“Can I come in you?” He asks, teeth gritted against the imminence of his own orgasm.

“Yes,” Joe gasps, running both his hands through Booker’s hair. “Yes, you gorgeous, sweet man.”

Booker comes so hard he loses track. The first pulse bowls him over, makes him fall into Joe’s strong arms. The second and third, his hips squirm deeper into Joe, trying to fuck it in as deep as he can go. After that, he loses track. He thinks it lasts a full minute. When he pulls out, there’s so much of it it comes spilling out with his cock, and the sight forces another debilitating pulse out of his balls.

He can’t get up to go clean up. He just can’t.

“You did so well,” Nicky says, pressing kisses into his hair. “We’ll be right back to hold you.”

For a long moment, drifting, almost unconscious, Booker thinks they won’t. It will be alright, if they aren’t. This, this one night, was more than Booker thought he’d ever get. It would destroy him if they don’t come back, but no more than he’s been destroyed before. He’ll still love them.

The warm, soft scrape of a washcloth across his belly rouses him from his thoughts. 

Nicky is smiling at him, wiping the come off his belly. Wiping his own come off his belly. “Are you alright?” He asks,

“Oh my god,” Booker groans in answer.

Joe laughs from the doorway.

He comes up to the head of the bed, offering Booker a sip of mouthwash from the bottle and a glass to spit it into.

“Just this,” he promises. “Just this, and then we can cuddle.”

He lets them clean him up, lets them take away the towel they’d put down before everything - well, let is a hard word, he lays there and they move quietly around him. 

“Alright, old man,” Joe says eventually. “You’re going to have to let us into bed now.”

Booker sighs. “Mm-hm,” he says.

Nicky laughs somewhere behind Joe. “He did do all the work,” he points out, which is very fair. There’s a significant amount of jostling, and then a dip in the mattress very far away from him, before even more jostling.

Then Joe’s arms are wrapping around him and his nose is burying itself into Booker’s nape. “Alright, love?” Joe asks.

“Yes,” Booker says. “What about Nicky?”

“Tell you a secret,” Joe says as Booker drifts off, voice rich and deep and right against Booker’s skin, like he can actually wrap Booker in it. “Sometimes I like when _he_ holds _me_.”

* * *

Sébastien is awake at five forty-five, and it’s not because he has jet lag.

He lifts up Joe’s arm gently - he’s seen Nicky do it a hundred times, Joe really does sleep like the dead - and slips out from under him.

By eight, he’s just about done.

By eight-fifteen, Joe stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and with Nicky hot on his heels.

“Bas,” Nicky breathes. “Thank god. I thought you’d left.”

“Not unless you want me to,” Sébastien says, confused.

“Smells good,” Joe says, plastering himself to Sébastien, arms wrapped tight around his middle.

“You mean me or the food?” Sébastien asks.

Joe makes a noise against his clavicle that probably means both.

“Sébastien,” Nicky says, staring at the folded up couch, at the shining floors and sparkling windows. “What have you done?”

“I just cleaned up a little,” Sébastien says. “And made breakfast. I was going to bring it to you in bed, but, well--”

Nicky makes a wordless noise of frustration and takes Sébastien’s face between his hands over Joe’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to his lips. “You’re lovely,” he says. “But you didn’t need to.”

“I wanted to,” Sébastien says. “I was so happy I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to show you.”

Breakfast is delicious, but not as delicious as the kisses they shower him with between bites.

In the end, they’re in Las Vegas six more months before Copley lets them leave for a more temperate safehouse, and from there it’s another year before they can meet the others.

By the time that’s over, Joe and Nicky have a very firm handle on what makes Sébastien feel settled, and when they go on their next mission, they go without him.

While they’re gone, Sébastien cleans the safehouse floors and gets rid of the dust on the furniture. He goes shopping, enough to feed an army. More than they fed his army, back in the day.

Dinner’s in the oven when they get back, hours later. Quynh claims the shower first thing, excited to get any contact with water over with. The rest of them troop into the kitchen to enjoy the warmth and the smell of food. Sébastien wipes a trace of blood off of Joe’s cheek and kisses him hello, and then does the same for Nicky.

“All set?” Andy asks.

“All set, boss,” Sébastien says. “We should have enough to last the week, and I told the lady who runs the news stand I’m a writer hosting a getaway for wannabes trying to finish the great Slovakian novel, so no one will wonder why we’re not leaving the house. No one traceable but my alias, and no reason to connect me to what happened in Bratislava.”

“Well done,” Nicky tells him. 

“C’mon,” Joe says. “Quynh’s almost done, you’ve been working hard too, you deserve a shower.”

“Dinner had better not burn,” Nile yells after them, but there’s a laugh in her voice.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My giftee [badwolfbadwolf](https://badwolfbadwolf.tumblr.com/) requested Joe/Nicky/Booker, domesticity and Nicky in panties. There were other things they liked, I kinda ran with those. I hope she doesn't mind how filthy this got. I also hope y'all are down for my intense house husband Booker feels at the end there.
> 
> The title is from "Might be Right" by White Reaper
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://bewires.tumblr.com).


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